About the Book Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google are the four most influential companies on the planet. Just about everyone thinks they know how they got there. Just about everyone is wrong

Chapter 4: Facebook
1
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population-grows-1-3-billion/
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facts-for-disney-world-40th-
anniversary/7ckezhCnZnB6pyiT5olyEOF/
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4
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https://newsroom.fb.com/company-info/
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5
. McGowan, Tom. “Google: Getting in the face of football’s 3.5 billion 
fans.” CNN. February 27, 2015. 
http://edition.cnn.com/2015/02/27/football/roma-juventus-google-
football/
.
6
. “How Much Time Do People Spend on Social Media?” Mediakix. 
December 15, 2016. 
http://mediakix.com/2016/12/how-much-time-is-
spent-on-social-media-lifetime/#gs.GM2awic
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7
. Stewart, James B. “Facebook Has 50 Minutes of Your Time Each Day. 
It Wants More.” 
New York Times.
 May 5, 2016. 
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/06/business/facebook-bends-the-
rules-of-audience-engagement-to-its-advantage.html
.
8
. Pallotta, Frank. “More than 111 million people watched Super Bowl 
LI.” CNN. February 7, 2017. 
http://money.cnn.com/2017/02/06/media/super-bowl-ratings-patriots-
falcons/
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9
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https://newsroom.fb.com/company-info/
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10
. Shenk, Joshua Wolf. “What Makes Us Happy?” 
Atlantic.
 June 2009. 
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/06/what-makes-
us-happy/307439/
.
11
. Swanson, Ana. “The science of cute: Why photos of baby animals 
make us happy.” 
Daily Herald
. September 4, 2016. 
http://www.dailyherald.com/article/20160904/entlife/160909974/
.

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12
. “World Crime Trends and Emerging Issues and Responses in the Field 
of Crime Prevention and Social Justice.” UN Economic and Social 
Council. February 12, 2014; and UNODC, Global Study on Homicide 
2013: Trends, Contexts, Data (Vienna: UNODC 
https://www.unodc.org/documents/data-and-
analysis/statistics/crime/ECN.1520145_EN.pdf
. 2013). 
https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/data-and-analysis/statistics/reports-
on-world-crime-trends.html
.
13
. Meyer, Robinson. “When You Fall in Love, This Is What Facebook 
Sees.” 
At-lantic
. February 15, 2014. 
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/02/when-you-
fall-in-love-this-is-what-facebook-sees/283865/
.
14
. “Number of daily active Facebook users worldwide as of 1st quarter 
2017 (in millions).” Statista. 
https://www.statista.com/statistics/346167/facebook-global-dau/
.
15
. Jones, Brandon. “What Information Does Facebook Collect About Its 
Users?” 
PSafe Blog.
 November 29, 2016. 
http://www.psafe.com/en/blog/information-facebook-collect-users/
.
16
. Murphy, Mike. “Here’s how to stop Facebook from listening to you on 
your phone.” 
Quartz.
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https://qz.com/697923/heres-how-
to-stop-facebook-from-listening-to-you-on-your-phone
.
17
. Krantz, Matt. “13 big companies keep growing like crazy.” 
USA 
Today.
 March 10, 2016. 
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/markets/2016/03/10/13-big-
companies-keep-growing-like-crazy/81544188/
.
18
. Grassegger, Hannes, and Mikael Krogerus. “The Data That Turned the 
World Upside Down.” 
Motherboard.
 January 28, 2017. 
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/how-our-likes-helped-
trump-win
.
19
. Cadwalladr, Carole. “Robert Mercer: The big data billionaire waging 
war on mainstream media.” 
Guardian
. February 26, 2017. 
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/feb/26/robert-mercer-
breitbart-war-on-media-steve-bannon-donald-trump-nigel-farage
.
20
. “As many as 48 million Twitter accounts aren’t people, says study.” 
CNBC. April 12, 2017. 
http://www.cnbcafrica.com/news/technology/2017/04/10/many-48-
million-twitter-accounts-arent-people-says-study/
.

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21
. L2 Analysis of LinkedIn Data.
22
. Novet, Jordan. “Snapchat by the numbers: 161 million daily users in 
Q4 2016, users visit 18 times a day.” 
VentureBeat.
 February 2, 2017. 
https://venturebeat.com/2017/02/02/snapchat-by-the-numbers-161-
million-daily-users-in-q4-2016-users-visit-18-times-a-day/
.
23
. Balakrishnan, Anita. “Snap closes up 44% after rollicking IPO.” 
CNBC. March 2, 2017. 
http://www.cnbc.com/2017/03/02/snapchat-
snap-open-trading-price-stock-ipo-first-day.html
.
24
. Pant, Ritu. “Visual Marketing: A Picture’s Worth 60,000 Words.” 
Business 2 Community.
 January 16, 2015. 
http://www.business2community.com/digital-marketing/visual-
marketing-pictures-worth-60000-words-
01126256#uaLlH2bk76Uj1zYA.99
.
25
. Khomami, Nadia, and Jamiles Lartey. “United Airlines CEO calls 
dragged passenger ‘disruptive and belligerent.’” 
Guardian.
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2017. 
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/11/united-
airlines-boss-oliver-munoz-says-passenger-belligerent
.
26
. Castillo, Michelle. “Netflix plans to spend $6 billion on new shows, 
blowing away all but one of its rivals.” CNBC. October 17, 2016. 
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/10/17/netflixs-6-billion-content-budget-
in-2017-makes-it-one-of-the-top-spenders.html
.
27
. Kafka, Peter. “Google and Facebook are booming. Is the rest of the 
digital ad business sinking?” 
Recode.
 November 2, 2016. 
https://www.recode.net/2016/11/2/13497376/google-facebook-
advertising-shrinking-iab-dcn
.
28
. Ungerleider, Neal. “Facebook Acquires Oculus VR for $2 Billion.” 
Fast Company.
 March 25, 2014. 
https://www.fastcompany.com/3028244/tech-forecast/facebook-
acquires-oculus-vr-for-2-billion
.
29
. “News companies and Facebook: Friends with benefits?” 
Economist.
 
May 16, 2015. 
http://www.economist.com/news/business/21651264-
facebook-and-several-news-firms-have-entered-uneasy-partnership-
friends-benefits
.
30
. Smith, Gerry. “Facebook, Snapchat Deals Produce Meager Results for 
News Outlets.” Bloomberg. January 24, 2017. 
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-01-24/facebook-
snapchat-deals-produce-meager-results-for-news-outlets
.

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31
. Constine, Josh. “How Facebook News Feed Works.” 
TechCrunch.
 
September 6, 2016. 
https://techcrunch.com/2016/09/06/ultimate-
guide-to-the-news-feed/
.
32
. Ali, Tanveer. “How Every New York City Neighborhood Voted in the 
2016 Presidential Election.” 
DNAinfo.
 November 9, 2016. 
https://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/numbers/clinton-trump-president-
vice-president-every-neighborhood-map-election-results-voting-
general-primary-nyc
.
33
. Gottfried, Jeffrey, and Elisa Shearer. “News Use Across Social Media 
Platforms 2016.” Pew Research Center. May 26, 2016. 
http://www.journalism.org/2016/05/26/news-use-across-social-media-
platforms-2016/
.
34
. Briener, Andrew. “Pizzagate, explained: Everything you want to know 
about the Comet Ping Pong pizzeria conspiracy theory but are too 
afraid to search for on Reddit.” 
Salon.
 December 10, 2016. 
http://www.salon.com/2016/12/10/pizzagate-explained-everything-
you-want-to-know-about-the-comet-ping-pong-pizzeria-conspiracy-
theory-but-are-too-afraid-to-search-for-on-reddit/
.
35
. Williams, Rhiannon. “Facebook: ‘We cannot become arbiters of truth
—it’s not our role.’” 
iNews.
 April 6, 2017. 
https://inews.co.uk/essentials/news/technology/facebook-looks-
choke-fake-news-cutting-off-financial-lifeline/
.
36
. “News Use Across Social Media Platforms 2016.”
37
. Pogue, David. “What Facebook Is Doing to Combat Fake News.” 
Scientific American.
 February 1, 2017. 
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/pogue-what-facebook-is-
doing-to-combat-fake-news/
.
38
. Harris, Sam. 
Free Will
 (New York: Free Press, 2012), 8.
39
. Bosker, Bianca. “The Binge Breaker.” 
Atlantic
, November 2016. 
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/11/the-binge-
breaker/501122/
.

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